Criminal Law Commons^™

Felon Disenfranchisement, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

In its broadest forms, felon disenfranchisement excludes even individuals who have long been rehabilitated. Yet they are still treated only as partial citizens. Automatic, long-term restrictions on the franchise are unnecessarily exclusionary. More importantly, they hinder reentry and rehabilitation. Citizens returning from imprisonment, who can vote, have lower rates of recidivism than those who are barred from voting. Re-enfranchisement signals a return to citizenship. It advances and confirms a returning citizen’s full participatory rights. Ultimately, that means we recognize these individuals as having lived up to the expectation of rehabilitation rather than leaving them feeling defeated.

A Vision Of Criminal Violence, Punishment And Relational Justice (Reviewing Sam Pillsbury, Imagining A Greater Justice – Criminal Violence, Punishment, And Relational Justice), Mary Graw Leary

Scholarly Articles

Since the inception of a state-run criminal justice system, many have debated and critiqued its features and goals. Often this dialogue takes place largely among academics and theorists with limited impact on policy and an even more marginal influence on the day to day reality of those most affected by the system. In every generation or so, however, a consequential movement emerges, for better or worse. These include movements regarding the evolution of the prison system, the creation of a rehabilitative juvenile court system, the implementation of “tough on crime” provisions of the 1980s, as well as others. With these …

Proceedings Of The Thirteenth International Humanitarian Law Roundtable, Year In Review Lecture, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

What I think I’d like to do is tell three stories of three things that did happen in international criminal justice over the past year, and use my time as a vehicle and doorway to think about law and also how law fits in life. One of the themes that I want to evoke through these stories is what I felt is an important vibe in international criminal law enforcement this past year. And it’s the theme of time and age and coming of age.

History Repeats Itself: Some New Faces Behind Sex Trafficking Are More Familiar Than You Think, Mary Graw Leary

Scholarly Articles

This Essay argues that the historical pattern of businesses that benefit directly or indirectly from the slave trade opposing efforts to end that sale of human beings is repeating itself today. Some tech companies and other members of the digital economy face a perverse motivation: they profit indirectly from online sex trafficking and risk decreased profits from a more regulated Internet. As such, they take on the same role of the cotton and textile merchants of the nineteenth century, arguing for legislative action that will continue to enable the trade and exploitation of human beings, thereby allowing them to retain …

Revisiting The Role Of Federal Prosecutors In Times Of Mass Imprisonment, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

None available.

Fear-Based Provocation, Michal Buchhandler-Raphael

Scholarly Articles

This Article offers three major contributions to challenge existing view of provocation: first, it considers psychological research that found that fear, similarly to anger, may also significantly interfere with individuals’ decision making processes by disturbing rational judgment, therefore sometimes leading to lethal aggression. Second, drawing on this research, this Article argues that provocation doctrine should be reconstructed to also include a fear-based prong. Third, recognizing fear-based provocation calls for rejecting the loss of control paradigm that currently dominates judges’ and jurors’ perception of the defense. In its place, this Article advocates focusing on the fearful defendant’s fear of violence threatened …

Cybersurveillance Intrusions And An Evolving Katz Privacy Test, Margaret Hu

Scholarly Articles

To contextualize why a new approach to the Fourth Amendment is essential, this Article describes two emerging cybersurveillance tools. The first Cybersurveillance tool, Geofeedia, has been deployed by state and local law enforcement. Geofeedia uses a process known as "geofencing" to draw a virtual barrier around a particular geographic region, and then identifies and tracks public social media posts within that region for predictive policing purposes. The second tool, Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), is under development by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). FAST is another predictive policing tool that analyzes physiological and behavioral signals with the …

Structuring Relief For Sex Offenders From Registration And Notification Requirements: Learning From Foreign Jurisdictions And From The Model Penal Code: Sentencing, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

This paper first discusses the scope of sex offender registration and notification under federal and state laws, and contrasts U.S. laws with those in other countries. Part III turns to the prevailing rationales for these laws and tests their empirical validity. It highlights the negative effect of registries and notification on criminal investigations, and the cost they impose on public coffers, public safety, and those labeled sex offenders. Part IV discusses a set of proposals to turn registries, which may serve a limited legitimate function, into more effective law enforcement tools while restricting public notification. This section outlines ex ante …

Epilogue: Homecoming Kings, Queens, Jesters, And Nobodies, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This epilogue unpacks the return of convicted war criminals as homecomings, with all the attendant rites, rituals, and expectations. Knotting together the various papers in this edited collection, this paper examines how the international community constructs an ideal homecoming and, in turn, how such a construction may simply be fanciful.

Book Review, Jamie Rowen, Searching For Truth In The Transitional Justice Movement (2017) & Leonie Steinl, Child Soldiers As Agents Of War And Peace: A Restorative Transitional Justice Approach To Accountability For Crimes Under International Law (2017), Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Why do truth commissions emerge following some conflicts but not others? Jamie Rowen tackles this question in Searching for Truth in the Transitional Justice Movement. Rowen approaches this topic through a detailed study of three jurisdictions: the former Yugoslavia, Colombia, and the United States. Although truth commissions did progress in Colombia, they stalled in both the former Yugoslavia in the wake of the Balkan Wars as well as in the United States in regard to the conduct of US officials after the events on 11 September 2001. Rowen unpacks what happened and what failed to happen — and why …

The Office Of The Prosecutor: Seeking Justice Or Serving Global Imperialism?, Shannon Fyfe

Scholarly Articles

The international criminal courts and tribunals, especially the ICC, have been strongly criticized for their susceptibility to political influence. Some have argued that the ICC has a distinctly Western bias and is participating in a new kind of imperialism in Africa. Others argue that history and the complicity of the West should disqualify the international community from demanding the prosecution of individuals participating in conflicts resulting directly from colonialism. Many have focused on the nature of the creation of the judicial bodies and the inherent political nature of judicial decisions regarding whom to prosecute. In this article, I offer a …

The Indecency And Injustice Of Section 230 Of The Communications Decency Act, Mary Graw Leary

Scholarly Articles

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is a 1996 law wholly inadequate to address 21^st Century problems. The most egregious example of this is online sex trafficking, which was allowed not only to exist, but also to thrive due, in large part, to §230. This Article examines the development of the jurisprudence regarding online advertising of sex-trafficking victims and juxtaposes the forces that created § 230 with those preventing its timely amendment. This Article argues that, although § 230 was never intended to create a regime of absolute immunity for defendant websites, a perverse interpretation of the non-sex …

Touch Dna And Chemical Analysis Of Skin Trace Evidence: Protecting Privacy While Advancing Investigations, Mary Graw Leary

Scholarly Articles

Forensic science transforms criminal investigations by resolving previously unsolvable cases and bringing an increased sense of justice to communities. This application of scientific disciplines to legal questions aids investigators in solving crimes. While many sciences can be utilized—such as physics (pattern evidence), chemistry (toxicology), or biology (cause of death), to name a few—two aspects of scientific advancement have played an outsized role in responding to crime. Trace evidence analysis—specifically, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analysis—is an essential component to an effective and accurate criminal justice system. DNA evidence has emerged as a powerful tool to identify perpetrators of unspeakable crimes and to …

Testimonial Injustice In International Criminal Law, Shannon Fyfe

Scholarly Articles

In this article, I consider the possibilities and limitations for testimonial justice in an international criminal courtroom. I begin by exploring the relationship between epistemology and criminal law, and consider how testimony contributes to the goals of truth and justice. I then assess the susceptibility of international criminal courts to the two harms of testimonial injustice: epistemic harm to the speaker, and harm to the truth-seeking process. I conclude that international criminal courtrooms are particularly susceptible to perpetrating testimonial injustice. Hearers in the international criminal courtroom should practice testimonial justice, but the institution is not structured in a way that …

Commodifying Policing: A Recipe For Community-Police Tensions, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

This Article, in Part II, begins with a description of how municipalities, at least since the recession of 2008, have fallen short of fully funding their departments. Part III focuses on four distinct outside funding components and their impact on policing. The first subsection discusses asset forfeitures, under both state and federal law. Subsection two highlights revenue derived from citations, often in the form of traffic tickets. A discussion of fees that are being added to fines, often to fund courts, probation agencies, and police departments, follows. The increasing amounts and types of fees imposed have substantially increased the burden …

Crimmigration-Counterterrorism, Margaret Hu

Scholarly Articles

The discriminatory effects that may stem from biometric ID cybersurveillance and other algorithmically driven screening technologies can be better understood through the analytical prism of “crimmigration-counterterrorism”: the conflation of crime, immigration, and counterterrorism policy. The historical genesis for this phenomenon can be traced back to multiple migration law developments, including the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. To implement stricter immigration controls at the border and interior, both the federal and state governments developed immigration enforcement schemes that depended upon both biometric identification documents and immigration screening protocols. This Article uses contemporary attempts to implement an expanded regime of “extreme vetting” …

No Smoke And No Fire: The Rise Of Internal Controls Absent Anti-Bribery Violations In Fcpa Enforcement, Karen E. Woody

Scholarly Articles

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prohibits bribery of foreign public officials in order to obtain or retain business. It is, for all intents and purposes, an anti-bribery statute. To detect bribery, the FCPA contains accounting provisions related to bookkeeping and internal controls. The books and records provision requires issuers to make and maintain accurate books, records, and accounts; likewise, the internal controls provision requires that issuers devise and maintain reasonable internal accounting controls aimed at preventing and detecting FCPA violations. If one considers the analogy that bribery is the “fire” in FCPA enforcement actions, and books and records violations …

Tracking Hate Speech Acts As Incitement To Genocide In International Criminal Law, Shannon Fyfe

Scholarly Articles

In this article, I argue that we need a better understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the current debates in international law surrounding hate speech and inchoate crimes. I construct a theoretical basis for speech acts as incitement to genocide, distinguishing these speech acts from speech as genocide and speech denying genocide by integrating international law with concepts drawn from speech act theory and moral philosophy. I use the case drawn on by many commentators in this area of international criminal law, the trial of media executives for the roles they played in the Rwandan genocide through public speech acts …

The Role And Experience Of Law Students And Law Schools In Clemency Project 2014, J.P. "Sandy" Ogilvy

Scholarly Articles

The response of lawyers to the call to volunteer with Clemency Project 2014 was phenomenal. More than 3000 individuals from over 800 law firms, law schools, and organizations reviewed more than 36,000 applications from federal prisoners who requested pro bono assistance in filing an application for commutation of sentence with the President. By the end of the Obama administration 2581 petitions were filed or supported by Clemency Project 2014. Of those, 894 applicants were granted commutations by President Obama.

This article looks at the response of the law schools and law students to the call for volunteers. The numbers are …

Dear John, You Are A Human Trafficker, Mary Graw Leary

Scholarly Articles

Human trafficking finally presents a crime that appropriately shifts the culpability from the abused to the abuser. As the heinous world of human trafficking is studied and more is understood about its inner workings, we can no longer conflate victimization with over-criminalization. The purpose of this paper is to shine light on the force and fraud that perpetuates the enslavement of victims who are sexually trafficked. Beginning with the Mann Act passed by Congress and up until more recently, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, this paper traces the historical and societal shifts that are necessary to situate Sex Purchasers in …

Affirmatively Replacing Rape Culture With Consent Culture, Mary Graw Leary

Scholarly Articles

The debate concerning affirmative consent consists of two camps: those who assert people must affirmatively establish a desire to engage in sexual contact and those who believe this is an unattainable standard. However, this is not where the debate should start and end. This paper argues that the movement towards affirmative consent in sexual contact will reduce the occurrence of sexual assault. Criminal law sets the backdrop for this paper, but the author recognizes the limits of criminal law. In order to combat sexual assault, there must be a multidisciplinary response. By providing a comprehensive definition of affirmative consent and …

The United States And The International Criminal Court: A Complicated, Uneasy, Yet At Times Engaging Relationship, Leila Nadya Sadat, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

The United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court and this Article demonstrates that it has a complicated relationship to questions of complementarity in the Rome Statute. Federal and (to a small degree) state criminal law in the United States codifies some of the crimes that, conceptually, relate to conduct proscribed in the Rome Statute, but coverage is incomplete and jurisdiction may often be lacking. Thus, the United States is able to prosecute a limited number of ICC crimes in federal courts as such, particularly genocide, torture, and some war crimes including the recruitment or use of …

Implementing Change In Sentencing And Corrections: The Need For Broad-Based Research, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

None available

How To Change The Philosophy And Practice Of Probation And Supervised Release: Data Analytics, Cost Control, Focus On Reentry, And A Clear Mission, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

None available.

Voluntary Disclosure Fostering Overenforcement And Overcriminalization Of The Fcpa, Karen E. Woody

Scholarly Articles

Professor Peter Reilly’s article, Incentivizing Corporate America to Eradicate Transnational Bribery Worldwide: Federal Transparency and Voluntary Disclosure Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, 67 Fla. L. Rev. 1683 (2015), challenges the notion that voluntary disclosure of potential Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations to the government is always the best course of action for a company. In a world where whistleblowers can receive a bounty for information provided to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC),2 self-reporting is a critical, high-pressure decision that each company must undertake when faced with potential FCPA liability.

This Article takes a broader look at …

Extracurricular International Criminal Law, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This article unpacks the jurisprudential footprints of international criminal courts and tribunals in domestic civil litigation in the United States conducted under the Alien Tort Statute (ats). The ats allows victims of human rights abuses to file tort-based lawsuits for violations of the laws of nations. While diverse, citations to international cases and materials in ats adjudication cluster around three areas: (1) aiding and abetting as a mode of liability; (2) substantive legal elements of genocide and crimes against humanity; and (3) the availability of corporate liability. The limited capacity of international criminal courts and tribunals portends that domestic tort …

Victims Who Victimise, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

How to speak of the agency of the oppressed to harm others in times of atrocity? This article juxtaposes Holocaust literature (Levi, Frankl, Kertesz, Ka-Tzetnik) with Holocaust judging (the Kapo collaborator trials in Israel). It does so didactically to interrogate international criminal law’s interaction with former child soldier Dominic Ongwen, currently awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court.

Judicial Challenges To The Collateral Impact Of Criminal Convictions: Is True Change In The Offing?, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

Judicial opposition to disproportionate sentences and the long-term impact of criminal records is growing, at least in the Eastern District of New York. With the proliferation and harshness of collateral consequences and the hurdles in overcoming a criminal record, judges have asked for greater proportionality and improved chances for past offenders to get a fresh start. The combined impact of punitiveness and a criminal record is not only debilitating to the individual but also to their families and communities. A criminal case against a non-citizen who will be subject to deportation and a decade-long ban on reentry and three different …

A Legal Definition Of Leadership: Understanding §3b1.1 Of The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Marin Roger Scordato

Scholarly Articles

This Article offers a formal legal definition of “leadership” drawn from an unusual quarter: criminal sentencing. Sentencing guidelines that include adjustments based on the extent to which a defendant was a “leader” have spawned hundreds of appellate court cases attempting to develop a thoughtful, workable definition of the term. Reviewing these cases, this Article offers 25 separate characteristics courts have found material to a legal judgment as to whether an individual has been a leader within a criminal enterprise.

Eleven of these characteristics can be organized into three categories, which operate on the boundaries of the leadership concept. The first …

The Miller Revolution, Cara H. Drinan

Scholarly Articles

In a series of cases culminating in Miller v. Alabama, the United States Supreme Court has limited the extent to which juveniles may be exposed to the harshest criminal sentences. Scholars have addressed discrete components of these recent Court decisions, from their Eighth Amendment methodology to their effect upon state legislation. In this Article, I draw upon that scholarship to make a broader claim: the Miller trilogy has revolutionized juvenile justice. While we have begun to see only the most inchoate signs of this revolution in practice, this Article endeavors to describe what this revolution may look like both in …